So rather than attempt to separate the scientific community from the doctrine of materialism, the only practical approach now seems to focus my efforts on the hundreds of millions who have experienced NDEs and are already convinced that consciousness can exist without the body, and many of these would gladly revisit the experience if they could do so without dying.  So relating the reality and means of being able to go far beyond an NDE to attain God Consciousness could easily result in success beyond anything the physical science community might ever accept, as the scientific community seems unlikely to realize significant benefits from mystical teachings any time soon.  Those who have had an NDEs seem far more likely to lead humanity to complete freedom within the universe.  Of course the experience of an NDE is not necessary for enlightenment.  All are welcome to take up the study of God Consciousness.  An NDE simply provides a heavy dose of euphoria to boost one’s curiosity and desire to take this up as a serious study sooner rather than later.

 

THERE’S NO WAKE-UP CALL LIKE A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

We first turn to a discussion of Near Death Experiences, or NDEs. My personal NDE was foundational in terms of motivation to formulate and answer all our questions. What follows is the result of over 40 years of my research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the first of a series of commentaries to follow each of the introductory videos on the Lumignosis website in turn, with this episode focusing on the video of What We Are and How We Explore the Universe, and supplementing the video content with further discussion.  Following each of these commentaries, you are encouraged to submit any questions or comments you might have.

Regarding the account of my Near Death Experience, something amusing occurred just after I felt the tingling start to creep up my legs.  I mentioned to the doctor that I was feeling faint, and asked if I could lie back.  “Of course,” he said, and then asked his nurse to check my pulse.  The nurse dutifully picked up one of my hands and checked for a pulse.  She then placed my hand back by my side, and lifted my other hand to check for a pulse there.  She then placed that hand by my side, turned to the doctor, and very matter-of-factly said, “He doesn’t have one.”  She then turned around and started to walk away.

This seemed so absurd to me that I almost laughed out loud.  The nurse’s actions were so nonchalant that it seemed she must be thinking to herself, “Well, he killed another one.  Ehh, it’s Tuesday.”

Fortunately, the doctor didn’t share her blasé attitude and blurted loudly, “Get some oxygen on him!”  At that point, I was still calm, but quite curious about what was happening.

I subsequently experienced perhaps 4 or 5 of the convulsions of light and sound as mentioned in the video, before they suddenly ceased, leaving me in total absence of any light or sound, and the sense of being alone was profound.  This feeling was very brief, and I really didn’t have a chance to react to it before I realized I was dying.  In contrast to everything that had happened up to this point, the realization of dying was profoundly comforting, and amazingly, it seemed so familiar.

And then I had that devastating realization that everything in my 18 years of physical existence had just lost all meaning.  What a complete waste of time!  I was taking nothing of value with me.  I guess the takeaway from this, is that if one is enjoying the nearly endless succession of reincarnations, then there is no need to change anything you’re doing.  The process of reincarnation is automatic and works flawlessly.  Eventually, though, the movie of our karmatic Groundhog Day loses its novelty, and it becomes imperative to escape from this routine.

And thank God for Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.  Until I became aware of her work, I was concerned I might be an extreme aberration of my species.  My ignorance had stopped me in my tracks.  And by definition, when one is ignorant, one has no way of knowing the depths of one’s ignorance.  Eventually learning that Near Death Experiences were quite common was an incredible relief and provided a great sense of liberation.

Full assimilation of my NDE took well over a decade.  Beyond the realization that I had just wasted a lifetime, the most overwhelming parts were the euphoria and sense of drama associated with the experience.  These two factors caused me to instantly jump to the conclusion that this must have been heaven, because what could possibly be greater than what I had just experienced?  And I feel certain this same simplistic logic has caused the vast majority of others to draw the same conclusion.  It took me a decade to conclude otherwise, and now with the advantage of several decades of perspective, I realize one’s spiritual journey is infinitely more magnificent than what I experienced on that day.  But this isn’t to demean the accounts of so many reporting heavenly Near Death Experiences or the likes of opening communication with deceased relatives and friends.  I feel certain that although the current internet dialogue of NDEs tends to focus on the euphoria of the event, rather than what follows the NDE toward the ultimate completion of our spiritual journeys, NDE accounts are immensely valuable in motivating many to heighten their pursuit of spiritual issues.  Everyone must start wherever they are, and I am delighted to relate that the journey to universal consciousness becomes a crescendo of ever-increasing satisfaction.

Focusing on the scientific community’s response to Kübler-Ross, that the Out-of-Body experiences could all be explained by oxygen starvation of the brain, I think that some common-sense analysis of my experience can lead to wholesale dismissal of the claim that hallucination accounts for Near Death, Out-of-Body-Experiences.

Those convulsions of light and sound I experienced weren’t meant to be considered as hallucinations.  Rather, I would characterize them as gross distortions of sensory stimuli due to the rapid failure of bodily systems while dying.  In contrast, a few decades later, I had the opportunity to experience a textbook hallucination.  At one point in my career, I was racing against a nearly impossible deadline to complete a video for national broadcast.  The deadline was the schedule for the satellite uplink.  Broadcast quality desktop video production had just become available, and my only option was to use a pre-release beta-version computer workstation.  The software was so prone to crash, that after the first two weeks of 18-hour days, I realized I would need to work 24 hours a day for the final week in order to have any hope of making the deadline.  The only stimulant I relied upon was my typical coffee intake.  After about the first three of the 24-hour work days, as a delivery person entered the room where I was working, the entire interior of the room warped into a spherical bubble.  Other than being refashioned into a sphere, everything was perfectly recognizable.  There was no doubt this was a hallucination, but other than suffering a change in geometry, nothing was out of the ordinary.  Processing by my brain continued without interruption, only my vision was mapped onto the interior surface of a sphere.  Although this was a major league break from reality, I had so much work to do I couldn’t take time to enjoy the hallucination.

So that’s what I would classify as a hallucination.  In contrast, complete shutdown of all brain processing during an NDE, followed by Out-of-the-Body, razor-sharp vision and hearing, is what happens when you get the brain out of the way, and that is most certainly not a hallucination.  The brain must have oxygen to function.  The mind, being non-physical, doesn’t require oxygen at all.  In this regard, it has been all too common for scientists to analyze others’ perceptual experiences, without having any personal experience of their own.  Seriously, unless a scientist has had their own NDE, they should forego any attempt to analyze anyone else’s Near Death Experience.  Without your own experience, you’re missing the empirical foundation, that makes this a reality.

Kübler-Ross provided her own very strong scientific rebuttal to the claim that Near-Death, Out-of-Body Experiences are hallucinatory, when she focused her analysis to only the case files of those who had been completely blind, for at least ten years.  Since Dr. Kübler-Ross did not have the opportunity to publish her research before her data was destroyed by arson, her reporting was reduced to largely anecdotal accounts in her writing.

To do justice to Kübler-Ross’ efforts, in 1997, Dr. Kenneth Ring, along with his research assistant, collaborated with support groups for the blind, to complete 31 such interviews of blind individuals.  It also bears mention that one of these individuals had both his eyes removed by the time he was 4½ years old.  Their publication of A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision, established that there is no possible physical explanation of this phenomenon, and that consciousness and the mind survive physical death and are non-physical, separating from the body at death.  And as mentioned in the website text following the video, the reality of seeing and hearing events occurring during a Near-Death, Out-of-Body Experience, while the brain is incapable of processing, indicates that electromagnetic energy is being received and processed by something that is completely non-physical.

Don’t look for mainstream physics to come up with an explanation for this anytime soon.  However, I am intrigued by the possibility that if there are deceased physicists on the astral plane who study an astral version of physics, perhaps they could provide some insight.  I’ll throw this challenge out to any mediums who might be interested.  If you get any results, please let me know.  Brain function encompasses some very interesting biochemistry, but function of the mind throughout the realms of time and space must be truly fascinating.

Returning to Ring’s research, when one accepts this as proof that the mind and consciousness are non-physical, can exist outside the body, and survive death, this begs the pursuit of mystical claims that one does not need to die in order to have an Out-of-Body Experience.  Further, anyone is capable of an Out-of-Body Experience, and such, Out-of-the-Body Travel turns out to be the most powerful means of exploring the universe.  I should also mention here that there is widespread disagreement about the nature of the brain, mind, and consciousness.  It is a commonly held belief among many scientists that the brain and mind are the same, and that the brain creates consciousness.  I even attended a talk by a famous authority on spiritual matters, who stated without equivocation that the brain creates reality.  At first, I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.  But then, I simply realized I could no longer have any faith in anything that person said.  Kenneth Ring’s research proves that the mind and brain cannot be the same, and those who have had Near Death Out-of-Body Experiences will validate, that during an Out-of-Body Experience, the mind functions perfectly normally even though the brain has ceased all processing functions.  The issue of a possible distinction between the mind and consciousness cannot be settled until one explores the realm beyond time and space.  As will be related in a subsequent discussion, the mind is a construct within the realms of time and space, and as such, cannot function in the realm beyond time and space; whereas, the realm beyond time and space allows consciousness to perceive absolute reality without interference, and the limitlessness of its functionality cannot be appreciated, until this realm is explored empirically.  One spiritual teaching incorporates this as part of its creation story, in saying that God created the mind so that Consciousness could make sense of the realms of time and space.

Some of you are undoubtedly familiar with Out-of-the-Body Travel, and if you already find this to be a productive means of exploring the universe, then you should continue to utilize what works for you.  However, if you lack experience with such a technique, you should feel free to explore any of the historical mystical teachings mentioned on the website.  It is quite common for the various teachings to offer a variety of introductory and instructional materials, and often personal guidance as well.  Since I only have long-term familiarity with Eckankar, I will make reference to their offerings when it seems appropriate.

In particular, Eckankar is taught around the world, and quite possibly offers classes near you.  If information is not available to you locally, Eckankar offers several books on this (https://www.eckbooks.org/index.php?p=catalog&mode=search&search_in=name&search_str=spiritual+exercises+of+eck&x=0&y=0), described as Spiritual Exercises, as well as a wide range of other resources on their website (https://www.eckankar.org/).

At this point, I will provide some insight regarding contemplation and meditation, or whatever you wish to call it, and Out-of-the-Body experiences.  Over my decades of teaching physics in a variety of universities, I would usually have a student or two each semester who would stop by during office hours, wanting to discuss more esoteric issues, which would often wind up generating questions on spiritual matters.  I would point them toward the usual spiritual references and suggest they might want to try contemplation.  Following this, subsequent conversations with them would sometimes relate that they hadn’t become aware of any Out-of-Body experiences during contemplation, and I would relate that this is common at first, but that persistence was quite likely to pay off.

At one point, I decided to change my approach, so for the next two such students who dropped by, I made a point of mentioning that most people who try contemplation do not have success with out-of-the-body travel at first, so it’s probably best to not have expectations of success the first time.  I had separate conversations with these two students at almost the same time that semester, and for both of them, the day after I suggested they contemplate without having expectations of success, they returned to my office the next day and were furious with me.  Since they were specifically told not to expect any out-of-body experience, they were completely unprepared when they found themselves floating up by the ceiling, looking down at their body below.  This seriously freaked them out.  I completely understand that when something like this happens unexpectedly, the mind can become quite upset.

Of course, if someone were to expect such success with absolute faith, that very well might produce immediate results.  But without previous experience, expectations are usually unrealistic and often significantly interfere with what might happen.  I remember early in my contemplative study that after I would read accounts of some master’s experience, I would then decide that I wanted to have exactly the same experience.  Which, as you might guess, led to an utter lack of success on my part.  In one such instance, I finally resigned myself to abandon efforts to replicate someone else’s experience, which immediately led to experiencing exactly the event I had been hoping for.  Expectations can be either stimulative and productive, or completely block your efforts.  Your experience will likely be somewhere in between.

At one point in my study, I asked Spirit again and again in contemplation, at least hundreds of times; perhaps thousands, why wasn’t I experiencing certain exalted states of consciousness during contemplation.  (I am nothing, if not persistent.)  And I consistently got nothing out of this effort.  Until one day, upon asking the same question, I finally heard this crystal clear voice respond, “What can you accept?”

The bottom line?

RELAX

There is nothing of actual substance you do not already possess.

The only challenge, is becoming aware of it.

The sooner you can accept the reality of what is, the sooner you can become aware of it.  And don’t be surprised if this requires abandoning most expectations.

 

 

https://vimeo.com/720060693/2c9e7339a6?fl=tl&fe=ec

 

 

 

 

 

Plus probably one more video.